Nearly 10 months after Canada celebrated its 150th birthday, a cross-country mural project dedicated to the anniversary is wrapping up in Spruce Grove.

Spruce Grove is among the last communities to participate in the Canada Mosaic murals project. The project — spearheaded by St. Albert-based Mural Mosaic — began roughly a year prior to the anniversary of Confederation and is expected to finish by the end of October.

The project saw artists travel across Canada where they created murals in various communities. The theme was a train with each car representing a different town and aspect of Canada.

Denise Lefebvre, a co-ordinator with the project, said the size of the country, and the response, meant the project would last longer than just one year.

“It started a year before the 150 anniversary,” she said. “We had such an overwhelming response of people that wanted to be in the train — it was a lot of work.”

The train was chosen as the theme for the project for symbolism as a uniting aspect of Canadian culture, Lefebvre said.

The project is a partnership between Mural Mosaic, the City of Spruce Grove and the Allied Arts Council (AAC) of Spruce Grove. President of the AAC, Cindy James said the mural should be finished this week but remained tight-lipped about where in the community the mural would be displayed.

“We have a few places in mind,” she said. “We’re looking at some potential areas around the community.”

Fellow AAC member Crystal Fisher said the project had an overwhelmingly positive reception, with the 350 tiles needed to complete the mural selling out in just five days.

“The community really did want to be a part of it,” she said. “As soon as we saw the project, we knew we wanted to be a part of it, and thankfully Spruce Grove did, too.”

Once finished, the mural will be included in a Canada 150 book that will showcase the complete train as well as each individual mural. That book will be published before Christmas, according to Mural Mosaic.